


Soul Responding

by herwhiteknight



Series: 365 Days of Sarah/Cosima [15]
Category: Orphan Black (TV)
Genre: Couch Cuddles, F/F, Introspection, Late Night Conversations, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Sleepy Cuddles, Soft!Daddy Manning
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-06
Updated: 2017-02-06
Packaged: 2018-09-22 10:19:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,205
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9603689
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/herwhiteknight/pseuds/herwhiteknight
Summary: Cosima's late night study session turns her brain into a tangle of dark thoughts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I was thinking about soft!daddy Manning and this fic happened.
> 
> Day 16 of 365.
> 
> (when will i ever finish this series no one knows)

Cosima is shivering and it's _too quiet_ and her damn textbook isn't filling her brain with scientific music anymore. Normally all-nighters are a breeze for her – just her and her textbook and a long-since cold mug of tea and a soft playlist on repeat. But the music isn't working for her tonight and the tea is inexplicably bitter on her tongue, the drink definitively abandoned by the sink after a few mere sips.

She's had nights like this before, though they've been rare. There's so much about the universe that fascinates her that, in-school student or not, drives her to continue studying. To stay up past the sun fall and the moon rise and just _absorb._ To learn. To know.

And rarely does the universe bore her. But tonight... well. There's something that hits a little to close to home in the way that the textbook clinically describes things that sound a little too much like sickness and blood and _death –_ it's enough to make her snap the book shut.

Something stirs in the bed just a few feet away and Cosima winces slightly. These late night journeys often take her back to the dorm she shared with no one and she often forgets – there _is_ someone now. Someone who has been with her through all of the sickness and all the blood and all the – _almost_ death. She could wake her – she _should_ wake her. Sarah would want to know.

But Sarah's been through so much shit of her own, she _needs_ the rest. God knows neither of them have been getting much rest since landing back on home soil, finally free of illness and assailants. And so Cosima hunkers back down, drawing the thin material of their couch throw more firmly around her shoulders, and hopes that the static in her head will go away.

The words on the page make sense in the way that ultimately ends up frustrating her. They're there, they're definitely _alive_ , but they aren't warm. They do nothing to fill her with an awe that has always permeated a warmth up until now. They remind her of the time she almost died on that island, when Delphine there attempting to warm her up. The words feel exactly as Delphine's touch had back then: warm and earnest but unable to connect – not because of any misunderstanding, but more simply because there was a dramatic difference in their circumstances at that exact point. And the warmth no longer seeped through.

Cosima's lost in her thoughts, but Sarah's soft voice calling through the dim light of the lamp doesn't startle her. Sarah's long since learned exactly how to approach Cosima in any one of her many states at any given time. And lately, she's had to approach up-late-with-thoughts-too-loud Cosima quite a few times.

“Babe,” she murmurs, approaching her from the side. Not an attack. Not an ambush. An equal. A friend. Her lover. “Everything alright?”

Cosima shuffles over on the couch to let her sit down even as she waves her off like it's not a big deal. “Sorry I woke you,” she mumbles instead. And she is. She is sorry. Sarah _needs_ her rest. She's got a big day planned with Kira tomorrow – a quick glance at the clock – _today_ actually. She sighs, and Sarah instantly opens her arms at the distressed sound.

“Don't be sorry, love,” Sarah says roughly, and Cosima finds herself shivering again. But she's not cold this time. Far from it. “Hey. Look at me?” she asks, prompts Cosima's head to turn by sneaking a kiss under Cosima's jawline.

Cosima can't easily resist _anything_ that Sarah Manning asks of her, and especially not now, at this exact moment, when the lateness of the hour and the deafening silence and her intrusive thoughts have weakened her so. Plus, Sarah's voice has got that scratchy, just-woke-up timbre to it which, unfortunately for Cosima's scattered mind, sounds very close to her want-you-now timbre.

“Driftin' off again, Cos,” Sarah hums, her tone a light scold – one that conveys that she's not upset, just a little sad and desperate to comfort. “Tell me where you go in your head, love?”

And Cosima settles as Sarah braces herself more firmly against the armrest of the couch, encouraging little taps guiding Cosima into position between Sarah's legs, her back resting against the couch and her arms settled against Sarah's stomach as one shoulder wedges in between Sarah's side and the back of the couch.

Her head's a mess, and she's too tired to try to sort through the tangle, so she just lifts her unjammed shoulder in a long shrug that holds too much tension. And says the first thing on her mind that's the easiest to state. “You're not Delphine.”

Cosima's not looking, but she can _feel_ the smirk radiating off Sarah at the statement. Cosima frowns, shakes her head. Not upset – Sarah's not laughing at her – but because that smirk feels as similar as her want-you-now timbre and her head is too busy fighting with the complex to give in to something so _simple._

The smirk's gone by the time Cosima resurfaces from her thoughts. “Course I'm not Delphine, love,” she agrees simply, waiting to let Cosima continue the conversation in the direction that _Cosima_ wants it to go.

“I connect to you,” Cosima closes her eyes, Sarah's skin seeping sleep into her bones. She turns her nose into Sarah's chest, just barely covered by her beloved Clash tank, and tangles her legs within Sarah's bare ones. “I felt it... I thought I had it with Delphine. But she betrayed me, left me. She fucking _died_ on me.”

At this, Sarah does finally let out a little laugh, lifting her hand to Cosima's back to stroke soothing patterns down her spine, noting that talk of Delphine pulls Cosima into alertness very abruptly. And Sarah just wants both of them to just _rest._ She wants Cosima to _rest_ , screw what happens to her. “I know all this babe,” Sarah hums, laying kisses on the top of Cosima's head and bending slightly to treat her bare shoulders to the same.

“When she came back and... and managed to find me.. again,” Cosima finds herself yawning under Sarah's ministrations. Sarah's kisses are magic, they're _always_ magic. But she started this thread, she needs to finish to untangle part of the mess in her mind, to let it float away, out into the world on the wings of her words. “When she found me I... I thought that connection would come back.”

Sarah's lips pause by her ear, kissing feather light against the shell as she murmurs a confirmation, “But it didn't?”

“It did,” Cosima whispers, too close to sleep now to notice the minute freeze in Sarah's easy breathing. “The connection came back. But it wasn't with her, Sarah. It was with you. It's always been with you.”

Sarah breathes out that slight bit of mistrust that sometimes threatens to choke her and places one last kiss on Cosima's unworried brow. “I love you, Cos,” she breathes. But Cosima doesn't answer, already fast asleep with one hand resting on Sarah's bicep and one hand tangled loosely within Sarah's, a contented smile adorning her face.

 

**Author's Note:**

> It's 1AM as I'm posting this and I was listening to the album 5AM by Amber Run on repeat as I was writing this little fic so there's the blame placed. :P


End file.
